In Florida, the actual consent for the adoption of your child may only be signed after the child's birth. However, you may make plans for adoption at any point in your pregnancy, including selecting an adoptive family. We can even work with you while you are at the hospital, and after delivery. An adoption plan may even be made once you have taken the child home.

Yes, in private adoption you may discuss your individual desires for an adoptive family with us and we will present families who meet the qualities you are looking for. These desires may include such characteristics of adoptive parents as religious preference, race, age, the existence of children already in the family or other factors which you deem important in your selection of a family. Most adoption attorneys maintain information such as profiles and photographs of the families which birth parents may review when making this decision. You may also have your individual questions regarding a particular family answered and, in most instances, you may speak with or meet with the families as you desire so that you may feel assured this is the right family for you and your child.

The contact or relationship between the adoptive parents and biological or birth parents is referred to as "openness" in an adoption. The term "open adoption" does not have one specific meaning, but includes many forms of contact and relationships that birth and adoptive families choose to have with one another. We work with many different types of adoption, including open adoptions, closed adoptions and many variations in between. You may select the type of adoption that works best for you and your child.
 
Open adoption can refer to:

• Adoptive and birth parents who choose to meet on a first-name basis for one meeting before the birth of the child, but decide to have no further contact.
• Adoptive and birth parents who choose to have some form of an on-going relationship throughout the term of pregnancy and may maintain that contact throughout the labor and delivery process and immediately after birth, before the baby goes home from the hospital.
• Adoptive and birth parents who choose to have some form of an on-going contact whether through cards, letters, email, blogs, web sites and/or photographs.
• Adoptive and birth parents who choose to have an on-going, in person contact between the birth parent(s) and child.

Prospective Adoptive parents must complete an extensive screening process before they are approved to adopt. This process includes visits to their home, interviews, providing references and those references being checked, criminal background investigations, assurances of financial ability to care for a child, the review of medical and financial information and counseling to prepare them for adoption. All adoptive parents must be approved by the court in which they adopt. You may also have the opportunity to select the family, speak with them, ask them questions and meet in person, so that you may feel assured of your decision.